


To Roam Between Stars

by zarabithia



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2823248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Abigail Brand had a conversation with someone about mating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Roam Between Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rmc28](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rmc28/gifts).



> As always, I consider the comics to be helpful possibilities and not strict canon that must be adhered to at all costs when playing with non-comics media. So I took a little of column A and a little from column B to fill in the backstory that I hope works for you, recipient.

**I.**

"The non-mutant population of my planet had strange ideas about how mating is supposed to work," Abigail's mother tells her when Abigail is still too young to leave earth, but old enough to question the world that she calls home.

When Abigail is twelve Earth years old, the distant far away planet of her mother seems so much more intriguing than the world of Abigail's father, a world in which Abigail is distinctly out of place.

She cannot, at the time, imagine why her mother would want to relocate to a planet so ... different. 

"This planet had better ideas about 'mating'?" Abigail asks. She can't imagine that this planet has better ideas about _anything_ , but equally, she can't imagine that her mother is lying to her. 

"More ... open ones," her mother says, and exchanges a smile with her father. 

"I don't understand," Abigail says, out of frustration. She has more to say about this, but Lothi has decided to start throwing books from her mother's shelves at her head. 

Brothers are the absolute worst, and Abigail imagines that on Earth, the mating practices do not allow for them. Because in the mystical wonder land that Earth must be, they must know better than to produce brothers.

"Someday, when you are older, perhaps you will understand," Abigail's father says as he attempts to stop Lothi's efforts. His large furred body shakes all over when he talks. Sometimes she thinks she would like to have fur, but Lothi has fur and he is terrible. 

Abigail wants to protest that she is old enough _now_ , but Lothi's other parent arrives, and Abigail's mother and father are quick to abandon the conversation in order to provide greetings. 

Abigail has no desire to stay with Lothi, and the parents are not providing the answers she needs, so she retreats to her room, and seeks out the answers she wants from the stars that shine through the window.

~

**II.**

Anna is seven feet and three-quarters of an inch tall; Abigail will learn the very specific measuring system from a very tiny section of her mother's native planet later, much later, after Anna is no a physical presence in her life on a daily basis. But for now, Abigail knows only that Anna is very tall, taller still than the women on the planet Abigail's father called home.

Grace is four feet and two inches tall, but she makes up for what she lacks in height with tentacles. Long, purple wisps that are tender to the touch and even more tender when they brush across Abigail's skin. 

Abigail meets Anna at a bar just prior to an attempt to overthrow a pirate ship; Grace is the captain of the ship and holding Anna's brother hostage at the time. It leads to some uncomfortable tension at first. But three weeks after the overthrow, Abigail lies between Anna and Grace and watches the way Grace's tentacles curl around each other in the aftermath of their enthusiastic post-battle naked celebrations. 

The three of them have celebrated many battles against enemies in the past three weeks, but celebrating a victory over Nebula's henchmen is more than enough reason for an extra special celebration - if only because the celebration may indeed be fleeting. 

"On my world, people with unique hair colors were celebrated," Grace tells Abigail, and Abigail assumes that Grace's own vibrant pink hair does not count as "unique." "You could have ascended to ruler. The three of us could have had quite the dictatorship."

"It's not a dictatorship if three people rule in harmony together," Anna chides. Grace feigns a pout, but her body betrays an amusement that her face does not express, because one of her tentacles unwinds and glides across Abigail's hip before curling around Anna's wrist affectionately. 

"Here's to the oligarchy we never had," Abigail says.

"On my world, your tentacles would have marked you as a heretic to the goddess," Anna says to Grace. "You would have been sentenced to execution, and Abigail and myself would have faced the same fate for conspiring with you." 

"There has been a conspiracy?" Abigail asks. "That is not the word I would use to describe what has transpired between us today." 

Anna's smile is slow and inviting. "The word 'conspiracy' has many meanings, depending upon those who are in power, my little one. Is that not the case on your world?" 

"Don't know. I'm from a a couple of worlds. Pick one," Abigail says flippantly. 

"Ah, that explains much." When Grace moves, her tentacles bounce the way that Lothi's other parent's curls always had. They curl instinctively inward, providing the type of animation that makes her presence so much more impressive than her tiny four feet can otherwise do. 

"How does it explain anything, exactly?" Abigail asks. "Unless we're claiming that my two-world origin story is to blame for my current xenophilia." 

"No, no. Your hormones are to blame for that one," Anna argues. "But your desire to roam between stars - that is easily explained by your heritage." 

It's a silly thing to say, but Abigail falls asleep between them and beneath a large, open sky and she wonders about the star that she has always known belongs to her mother's world. 

~

**III.**

By the time that Abigail decides that visiting her mother's planet is a good idea, Anna has left to quell an uprising in her sector of the galaxy and Grace has decided that "Your mother's world's lack of tolerance gives me indigestion. But I wish you the best, my little duel-starred warrior." 

Abigail goes to her mother's world with the intention of meeting Charles Xavier. It is a name her mother has suggested, and though Abigail has not hugged her mother in ten years, she does sometimes follow her mother's advice regardless. 

But on her way to meet Charles Xavier, Abigail runs into a crowd of honest to goodness vampires. They are childhood bedtime stories, told to both Lothi and Abigail, only they have come to life. 

"You can't shoot them," the man with the eye-patch tells her. Abigail assumes that he is on the side she wants to be on, because he is on the side trying to kill the things that have been draining blood from the tiny village that was the last known source of "mutant activity." 

Her mother is a mutant, or so, her mother tells her, that is the word that her people have attributed to her. 

"It is not a kind word," her father has said, many times. "So even if they had approved of our relationship, I hope you see why your mother had no reason to stay on that world." 

Abigail is starting to suspect that "mutant activity" should actually be chalked up to "vampire activity," and she thinks she needs to start to suspect that her mother left this planet because of its inability to reason, not because of any particularly noble reasons.

"Then how do I kill them?" Abigail asks out of a growing sense of frustration. It's true that the blasts from the weapon she'd liberated from Gamora two missions back isn't having much of an effect on anyone, but stating the obvious isn't helping her defeat the _vampires_.

"With one of these." The stake is in her hand before the man with the eye-patch is finished with his sentence. No matter - Abigail has played far more impressive games at home, with her parents. 

She remembers, from her mother's stories, that the stake goes into the heart; fiction appears to reflect reality and Abigail's wrist is sore by the time she stands over a vampire-less main street. 

"Not bad," the man with the eye-patch says. "You fought vampires before?" 

"No," Abigail says. She does not say "I’ve fought other things," because the blaster on her hip and the actually dead undead ought to prove that much.

"Good. Last time I fought vampires with someone, they had a sad sob story about their ex being killed by one." The man's one visible eye hardens, and Abigail decides he is either an asshole or someone she wants to give her allegiance to - or possibly both. Both could be good. "I don't have time for that kind of messy in my line of work." 

"You don't have to worry. My exes only have alien uprisings, piracy, and staged coups to their credits," she tells him. 

"Hmm." He doesn't look impressed, but he does extend his hand. "I'm Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. You looking for a job?" 

She's not, but finding Xavier is turning out to be more difficult than she had anticipated. "We could talk about that instead of my exes." 

"Talking about your exes - or your feelings - was never an option with me," Fury says. "No matter how good at killing vampires you might be." 

The star of her mother's world is taking its place in the sky by the time that Abigail agrees to Fury's terms. She figures it will be a temporary job, but maybe it will help her answer some questions, and maybe it will lead her to Xavier. 

 

~

 

**IV.**

By the time that Abigail meets Carol Danvers for the first time, the two exes in question are names firmly tattooed on her arm and Abigail no longer directly works for Director Fury. Abigail is not sentimental, but she has accepted that meeting Anna or Grace again seems unlikely, and that relationship feels like it deserves some sort of permanence regardless of the temporary nature that it might have taken. 

One name per arm, and when people ask, she smiles her thinnest smile and tells them that they are the nick-names of her fists. 

Carol doesn't ask. Instead she shakes her head and says, "I always wanted one."

"You?" Abigail asks, because Major Danvers might have come up through the military, but she is very ... focused and rule-abiding. Earth has very strange rules, and one of these rules is apparently that those who follow the rules most stringently do not typically desire tattoos.

Abigail did not make up the rules of her mother's planet, because if she had, they would make more sense than they currently do.

Carol looks vaguely annoyed. "Air Force," she reminds sharply, then shrugs her shoulders. "I should have gone when I had the chance, before the accident." 

"You might be my second in command, Danvers," Abigail says, because a little reminder of rank to the super-humans of her mother's planet was never a bad idea - they were sometimes a bit more full of themselves than the powered beings from other worlds - "but even S.W.O.R.D. is going to allow you to have a little time off."

"The accident," Carol begins, and Abigail really does wish she'd stop calling it that. 

"May or may not have changed your ability to keep a tattoo," Abigail interrupts. "Let's go find out."

"I'm not sure - "

"Do I need to make it a dare? You Air Force types _always_ respond to that." 

It's not a dare. Not officially, anyway, but it still works. 

The tattoo, unfortunately does not. 

"I told you," Carol says, and may Anna's goddess have pity on Abigail, because the pout on the face of a woman who would most likely win a battle against every other superhero on the planet not named the Hulk is more attractive than it should be. 

Relationships are _messy_ , and Abigail s' mother is right; they are even more messy on Earth than on the far more flexible planet of Abigail's father. They are certainly more messy on Earth than they are in a crowded space ship traveling the vast regions of space. 

But then, running a secret government organization hardly calls for an actual _relationship_ , now does it? 

It is a ... desperate and grasping reasoning, but there's been nobody entertaining and intelligent enough to even consider a relationship with since the last encounter with the X-Men revealed that some people on Earth do actually have fur, too. 

"Perhaps I owe you an apology," Abigail says. "Or perhaps something more." 

"More?" Carol stops pouting at her never-going-to-have-a-tattoo spot on her arm to look at Abigail in surprise. "Well. You know, I did join the Air Force because I wanted to go above and beyond what was required." 

"That could be a useful skill in the bedroom," Abigail says bluntly, because dancing around the subject is never going to get her where she wants to be - at least it hasn't so far. 

Carol doesn't blush, but she fiddles with her scarf for a moment before she says, "We should take it back to headquarters," and before Abigail has time to wonder if she has misinterpreted Carol's suggestions, Carol adds, "The view is much better there." 

Later, when Carol's fingers are digging into the soft flesh of Abigail's hips, Abigail glances up at the vastness of space that surrounds their station, and can't help but agree that she is, indeed, blessed with a glorious sight.

~

**V.**

Of course Carol goes back to the Avengers. Who wouldn't? The Avengers seem pretty decent, as far as superheroes of her mother's planet go, and they have 100% less paper work to deal with than S.W.O.R.D. 

Abigail spends an hour eating Carol out as a goodbye - super powered stamina after all - and promises that "you will always have a place at S.W.O.R.D. if you want it." 

Carol spends an hour and a half eating Abigail out as her goodbye, and this ruins Abigail's desire to return McCoy's call when she gets it, two weeks later. 

Carol also promises to be in touch. This is not actually a promise that Abigail believes will be kept. 

So she is somewhat taken back by the fact that she walks into headquarters one day and Carol is there, with The Wasp by her side. 

It is, admittedly, a very different looking Wasp. 

"Real wings!" Janet Van Dyne exclaims, and there is more overt happiness in that sentence than the headquarters of S.W.O.R.D. has ever heard. 

"They were not real before," Abigail says, because sometimes files lie, sometimes Tony Stark is an ass who can't keep his fingers out of official files, and sometimes mistakes are made. 

"They weren't," Carol confirms. "The Avengers are ... going through some things right now. I wanted to bring her to someone I trusted, to make sure that everything is going to be okay." 

Abigail notices the way that Carol's hand reaches over and grasps Janet's hand, and she notices the way that Janet bounces closer with each squeeze of Carol's hand. 

"Do you actually think it's alien in origin, or are we just avoiding yet another Tony Stark melt down?" Abigail asks. 

Carol and Janet exchange looks. 

"So it's the latter then," Abigail asks, and she wants to be disapproving. 

She also wants to be in the middle of those looks. 

"Please, Agent Brand," Carol begs. 

"Please, oh, please, oh please," Janet chimes in. "If you allow us to skip past the whole man-pain drama - " 

"And dick-measuring," Carol mutters under her breath. 

"You would have our eternal gratitude," Janet says. Then she smirks, slow and confident and dammit, people of her mother's planet do not play fair, Abigail thinks. "Or perhaps something more."

Abigail simply looks at Carol, who is ignoring Abigail's pointed looks in order to get a better look at the wings. They are lovely - large, and feathered, and brown. They look much more like a "moth's" wings instead of a "wasp's," but that is the kind of nerdery that Abigail has a research section for. 

"C'mon, Danvers. Let's go make sure Van Dyne isn't suffering any harmful alien side effects," Abigail says. "Then we'll see if she's in the kind of shape to explore the wing kink you're aiming for." 

Danvers and Van Dyne follow closely behind Abigail, and the bounce in Van Dyne's footsteps provides a pleasing contrast to Danver's steady steps. Abigail is uncertain whether the pleasure she is currently experiencing from their company will last - always a question worth asking about the presence of multiple Avengers - but her confusion is not unfamiliar. 

Her uncertainty is fitting for the daughter of two worlds, Abigail thinks as she glances out to the scenery provided by the corridors of S.W.O.R.D.'s space station. 

And her uncertainty has never led her anywhere unpleasant, so now is not the time that she is going to start being afraid of it.


End file.
